For many 22 year olds in college, senior year is a time of preparing for graduation, applying to graduate schools and generally strategizing a career path.
But this was not so for University of Richmond student Scott Erwin. Erwin was given the opportunity last year to work in Iraq as a liaison between Coalition of Provisional Authority officials and Iraqi leaders. Erwin spoke about his experiences last night in Newcomb Hall.
Working through a civic educational program called Ambassadors of Democracy, Erwin said he was able to teach interested Iraqi students the basic tenets of democracy at Baghdad's Mustanseriya University.
"The first day I opened it up to them," Erwin said. "I asked them, 'What do you know about democracy?'"
Erwin said the students talked enthusiastically for great length on the topic.
Through the educational program, he was able to bring in Iraqi scholars and civic leaders for lectures with the students. Erwin said the current Iraqi situation now gives youth many more opportunities for advancement than before.
"Students for so long hadn't had the right to travel outside Baghdad," he said. "Now they can travel abroad to America and peruse their own interests in studying democracy."
Erwin said he went to Iraq because he thought it was his "time to serve," adding that the concept of sacrifice always meant a lot for him.
But on one afternoon trip in Baghdad, he almost sacrificed everything.
He said while traveling in an automobile stuck at an intersection in traffic, a car pulled out in front of his vehicle and opened fire. Two close friends were instantly killed and Erwin himself was wounded four times -- twice in the left arm, once in the right and once in the stomach.
Erwin said the attackers continued firing upon the vehicle until police arrived at the scene and forced them away.
Erwin spent over a month recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. There he said he saw first-hand soldiers wounded in Iraqi conflict.
"There were times where I was the only one in physical therapy with all four of my appendages," he said. "How can I feel sorry for myself when these people have lost so much?"
Despite the tragic loss of his friends and his own personal recovery struggle, Erwin maintains that going to Iraq was one of the most rewarding experiences of his life. While his assailants still have yet to be found, Erwin says their aims for the attack were not achieved.
"We know the attackers followed us home from the university," he said. "They wanted to stop ambassadors of democracy. They failed."
Erwin said emboldened students have spread the program to other Iraqi cities.
Erwin's speech was sponsored by the Fellows of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. Fourth-year student and Co-Fellow Rachael Robinson said Erwin represented the ideals of the Foundation and would help better promote those ideals to University students.
"Too many U.Va. students think terrorists are freedom fighters," she said. "Our goal is to get students to understand that they are never freedom fighters. Terrorism is never justifiable."
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